‘No-o, Mrs Donnelly.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Donnelly,’ Chef said, and Bess left the kitchen.
‘What was that all about?’ Claire asked when Bess returned to the dining room.
‘Kitchen gossip and temperaments,’ she said. The chef came out of the kitchen to do a walk-about, which he did on special occasions. What the man thought was special about tonight, Bess had no idea. ‘Chef?’ Bess called, after he had asked several of the guests if they had enjoyed their meal, and name-dropped the Savoy Hotel in London a couple of times. ‘Everything all right with Mrs Sharp, now?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Donnelly. And thank you for letting the staff know who’s the boss in my kitchen.’
Bess gritted her teeth for fear she would say something to burst the man’s inflated opinion of himself. ‘So, my sisters and I are let off the washing up now Mrs Sharp has been reinstated?’
Chef gasped and put his hands up to his fat cheeks. ‘No!’ he said. ‘She dashed off to tell her husband she’d got her job back before he left for work. He’s on nights at a factory in Lowarth, you see.’ With that the chef puffed out his chest and strolled out of the dining room smiling and waving his podgy hands as if he were royalty.
To Bess’s informed knowledge, Joan Sharp’s husband, Sid - a bookend to the chef in stature - had never done a day’s work in his life.
Ena and Claire, who had been listening to the conversation, left the table and began to clear it. ‘We have to work for our supper,’ Bess said to the inspector. Picking up several plates, she followed her sisters.
No sooner had the women started washing the dishes than Inspector Masters came into the kitchen with another bottle of wine. Scurrying behind him was Sylvie with four glasses. She put them down and giggled at Bess. The inspector had won Sylvie over. ‘Budge up girls,’ he said, grabbing a drying up cloth. ‘I am a bachelor, and therefore an expert at this sort of thing.’
Bess, Ena, Claire and Inspector Masters laughed their way through the washing and drying of every dish, pan, pot, plate and glass that had been used that night. When they had finished, Bess threw a dozen or more tea towels into the laundry basket and led the way to the office, where the four red-handed skivvies kept laughing while they drank the inspector’s wine.
Inspector Masters was the first to leave, saying he had an early start and would see them at breakfast.
‘Well?’ Ena said, ‘Who’d have thought a detective inspector from the Metropolitan police would be staying here and eating and drinking with us?’
‘And washing up for the privilege,’ Bess said, laughing with her sisters. ‘He was also the bearer of good news, for a change. He told me earlier that he now knows that neither Margot, Frank, or I, had anything to do with David Sutherland’s death.’
‘What a relief,’ Ena said.
‘About time,’ said Claire.
Bess gave Claire the key to her and Frank’s rooms and, after checking with Mr Potts that all the guests were in the hotel, she made him a cup of hot chocolate and checked the back door was locked. Chef lived in, his room was a couple of doors along the corridor from Bess and Frank’s. He was meant to be the last person to leave the kitchen at night, put out the lights and lock the door. On one occasion he had been on the cooking sherry and went to bed leaving the kitchen lights blazing and the door wide open. Bess hadn’t trusted him since.
There was no need to go back and check the kitchen tonight, because she had been the last to leave after the washing up marathon. Satisfied that all was well downstairs, and delighted that neither she nor anyone else close to her would be badgered again by the odious Sergeant McGann, Bess started up the staff stairs.
She paused half way. If the inspector knows it wasn’t Margot, Frank, or herself who killed David Sutherland, who did kill him?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Beckoning Bess and shushing her at the same time, Claire stood in the corridor outside Bess and Frank’s rooms. ‘Come and see Frank and Aimee,’ she whispered, leading Bess through the sitting room and into the bedroom.
Aimee, snuggled up against her Uncle Frank with her thumb in her mouth, was fast asleep. Frank, also asleep, was lying on his back fully dressed, clutching one of Aimee’s story books and her old teddy bear to his chest.
‘They’re both out for the count,’ Claire whispered. ‘Aimee looks so content cuddled up to Frank, it would be a shame to wake her.’
Frank doesn’t look comfortable though,’ Bess said. Taking the book and teddy out of his hands, Frank stirred and let out a long sleepy sigh. Claire looked at Bess and they both held their breath. Frank rolled onto his side, didn’t wake, and was soon breathing rhythmically again. Aimee, as a small animal would do, wriggled forward until she was leaning against Frank’s back.
Bess didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sight before her. Her husband would have made a wonderful father. ‘We’ll leave them,’ she said. Taking a blanket from the chest at the bottom of the bed, Bess put it over them, turned out the light and crept out of the room behind Claire.
Bess dropped onto the settee. ‘I’ll sleep in here.’ She swung her feet up, but wasn’t able to straighten her legs, and when she tried to turn over she almost fell off.
‘Come and sleep with me. It’ll be like when we were kids.’
Bess laughed. ‘All four of us had to bunk together, top to tail, when Granny visited.’
Claire pretended to shiver. ‘She used to scare the life out of Ena and me, always dressed in widow’s weeds.’
‘She was all right. She was just Victorian in her ways, that’s all.’
‘Come on,’ Claire said again, ‘it’ll be fun.’ She looked disparagingly at the settee. ‘This thing can’t be comfortable to sleep on, it isn’t big enough.’
‘You’re right,’ Bess said. ‘I’ll be with you in a second.’ Creeping into the bedroom, Bess took her dressing gown from the back of the door and a clean blouse from the wardrobe. The nightdress she would have worn was under Aimee’s pillow, so she took a clean one from the chest of drawers along with knickers and stockings, and slipped out of the room without disturbing her niece or her husband.
By the time Bess had collected toothbrush, hairbrush, and other toiletries that she’d need in the morning and made her way to Claire’s room, her sister was in bed.
‘How’s Mitch?’ Bess asked, cleaning her teeth.
‘The same. He doesn’t sleep much, so he’s often irritable. When he does drop off he has awful nightmares, which wake him up, so he’s more irritable. He’s jumpy and nervous. The slightest things upset him, and he worries all the time about mine and Aimee’s safety. It’s like living with an unexploded bomb, never knowing when it’s going to go off. The doctor said he’s suffering from nerves.’
‘Same as Dad was when he came home from the Great War,’ Bess said, taking a glass from the shelf above the hand-basin, filling it with water and rinsing the toothpaste out of her mouth. ‘Some of the lads who came back from Dunkirk had the same symptoms. They had a hell of a time, saw some terrible things, and some of them couldn’t shake off the experience. They probably still haven’t.’ She took off her clothes, pulled on her nightdress, and jumped into bed next to her sister.
‘Mam said our Tom was like it when he came back.’
‘He was,’ Bess said, leaning on her elbows. ‘Meeting Annabel and spending time with the lads in the hospital wing helped for a while, but then he started to drink.’
‘He always liked a pint,’ Claire said.
‘He did, but this was different. He was getting drunk every night and offending people he cared about. It was as if he was on a merry-go-round and didn’t know how to get off.’
‘But he’s all right now, so what changed?’
‘He did. He had to. Mr Hands from The Crown in Woodcote telephoned me and said Tom was drunk and crying, and telling everyone that he had killed his best friend at Dunkirk. He asked me to go down and pick him up. He was frightened Tom would harm himself.’
‘Had he killed his best friend?’
‘No. The two of them had found a motorboat and Tom got it going. They were waiting for it to get dark, and then Tom, his best friend, and half a dozen other soldiers were going to escape. The boat was full when a couple of lads, carrying their injured mate, asked Tom’s friend to take him. There wasn’t any room, so Tom’s friend got out of the boat and put the injured lad in his place. Not long after they’d left the harbour it was blown up. Tom couldn’t forgive himself for being alive when his brave friend was dead.’
Bess and Claire sat in silence. It was Claire who spoke first. ‘How did Tom get over it?’
‘As I said, it was a combination of things - falling for Annabel and helping in the hospital wing. But the turning point was that night Mr Hands asked me to take him home. Tom was so drunk he couldn’t speak. I made him strong coffee and literally poured it down his throat until he was sick.’ Bess wrinkled her nose at the memory. ‘When he stopped being sick, he began to talk. He talked about his friend, how selfless and brave he was. Jock!’ Bess said, his name suddenly coming to her. ‘That was his name, Jock.
‘He talked about how scared he’d been, about the horror of seeing men his own age wounded and dying on the beach, and dead bodies floating in the sea.’ Bess stopped speaking and took a deep breath. ‘I think talking it out with someone he trusted helped, I really do. I happened to be there for Tom at a crucial time,’ Bess said. ‘Can you think of anyone Mitch trusts; who he could talk to without feeling inadequate or embarrassed?’
Claire thought for a moment. ‘The only people we know are in the military, and he’d never talk to any of them, he’d worry that they’d see him as weak.’
‘What about his father?’
‘He hasn’t seen him for years,’ Claire said. ‘No, not his father, but our friend Edith Belland, the woman we lived with in France. Edith is the only person in the world Mitch would trust with his fears - and she is the only one I can think of who would understand what he’s going through.’
The following morning Bess and Claire looked in on Frank and Aimee. They weren’t there, which meant they had already gone down to breakfast. Aimee’s old French teddy was propped up between two pillows on the bed. And on the table in the sitting room, in place of the pile of receipts Frank had brought up to work on the night before, was a note. “Good morning lazy Auntie Bess. Uncle Frank and me have been up for ages. We’ve collected the eggs and are now having breakfast.” The note was signed “Aimee.” Bess laughed. Her niece’s handwriting had developed quite a sophisticated style overnight.
Maeve was on the telephone. She lifted her hand in a welcoming gesture as Bess passed. There were no newspapers on the reception desk, so they had either not arrived, or Frank had dealt with them. No post either, which Bess assumed her husband had taken to the office. She popped in and skimmed through half-a-dozen open envelopes. There was nothing urgent, so she dropped them back onto the desk and went to the dining room for breakfast.
As she passed reception, Maeve was on yet another call. Frank was right, it looked as if the coming week was going to be busy.
Bess poked her head round the kitchen door and saluted the chef. ‘I’m going in to breakfast,’ she shouted. He muttered something in reply that Bess couldn’t hear above the clatter of pots and pans, so she left.
Sylvie, on her way to the kitchen balancing a stack of empty plates took Bess’s order. Two eggs and bacon, toast and tea. She was always hungry the morning after a late night, especially if she’d had too much to drink, which she’d definitely had last night.
‘Morning, darling,’ Bess said to Frank. She looked at Aimee, pretending to frown. ‘Who slept in my bed last night?’
‘I did!’ she squealed.
Bess put her forefinger to her lips and pulled a wide-eyed face. ‘Not too loud darling. People are eating.’ She looked at the half-eaten piece of toast on a side plate next to Aimee. ‘Where’s Mummy?’
‘Taken Nancy to the lav,’ Aimee piped up, loudly. Bess looked prudishly at Frank and bit her bottom lip to stop herself from correcting her niece.
‘Well you did ask,’ Frank said. Leaning down until his mouth was level with Aimee’s ear he whispered, loud enough for Bess to hear, ‘She did ask didn’t she, Aimee.’ Aimee looked at Bess very seriously and nodded.
‘Stop encouraging your niece to be cheeky,’ Claire said, returning to the table with Nancy. Claire pulled out Nancy’s chair and the little girl sat down.
‘Hello, Nancy,’ Bess said, looking across the table at Maeve’s niece who was waiting for Claire to push her chair nearer to the table. ‘How nice to see you again.’ When she was within reaching distance of her toast, Nancy looked up at Bess with big eyes, whispered hello and turned to Frank for what looked to Bess like approval.
Aimee took a slice of toast from her plate and ripped it in two, giving one piece to Nancy who, still looking at Frank, said, ‘Thank you.’
‘Jam?’ Aimee asked. Pulling a small glass dish on a silver tray towards her she stuck in a spoon.
‘I think I’d better do that,’ Frank said. ‘It wouldn’t do to get jam on your clothes, would it?’
As Sylvie brought in Bess and Claire’s breakfasts, Ena and Henry arrived. Seeing what her sisters were having, Ena asked if she could have the same.
Sylvie looked enquiringly at Henry. ‘Not for me, thank you.’ When the waitress had left, Henry turned to Bess and Frank. ‘Inspector Masters pushed a note under the bedroom door, asking me to meet him at Lowarth police station. I’ll have something to eat afterwards,’ he said, and, kissing Ena, dashed out.
‘Have the children had something savoury to eat?’ Bess asked, wrinkling her nose as Frank spooned a dollop of strawberry jam onto Nancy’s toast.
‘Boiled eggs,’ her husband replied.
‘And I collected them. You have to get up ever so early to collect the eggs,’ Aimee informed Nancy.
Bess looked at Claire and raised her eyes. The two women shook their heads and laughed.
When they had finished eating, Claire said, ‘I’ll take the girls up to the nursery. While they’re playing, I’ll write to Edith Belland, ask her if we can visit.’
‘We’ll talk about how best to approach the subject with Mitch later.’
‘Mm. That’s a conversation I am not looking forward to,’ Claire said.
‘Coffee?’
‘Lovely,’ Bess murmured, absentmindedly, as she listed figures in the accounts ledger.
‘What time are you going to see Margot and the baby?’ Frank asked, putting Bess’s coffee on her desk.
Bess lifted her head from the pile of receipts that Frank had planned to enter the night before. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Just gone twelve.’
‘I’d better make a move.’ She picked up the telephone, ‘Maeve, would you give the kitchen a ring and ask Chef to get one of the girls to make a selection of sandwiches?’ She put her hand over the mouth piece. ‘Are you having lunch in here, or in the dining room, Frank?’ He pointed to the work in front of him. ‘Six rounds should be enough. As soon as possible, please.’
‘What fillings do you want in them?’ Maeve asked.
‘Whatever Chef’s got. And some cake if there is any.’
‘See what I can do.’
‘Thank you. Oh, Maeve?’ Bess said quickly, before the receptionist had time to put down the telephone, ‘have you seen either of my sisters?’
‘They’re still in the nursery with the children.’
‘Thanks, I’ll go up.’ Bess put down the receiver. ‘I’d forgotten Aimee and Nancy were going to be here today when I told Bill I’d go to the hospital this afternoon.’
‘I don’t see the problem.’
‘There isn’t one. It’s just that Margot will be expecting me, but with Claire and Ena having come up specially to see her and the baby, they ought to go in my place. I’ll stay here and take care of the children. I’ll visit Margot next week.’
&
nbsp; ‘You go with your sisters,’ Frank said, ‘I’ll look after the children.’
‘You!’ Bess declared, slapping her hand down on the mound of papers on her desk, ‘can finish what you started, or rather didn’t start, last night. Enter this lot into the accounts ledger, and then file it.’
Frank lifted the pile of receipts from Bess’s desk, plonked them down on his own desk, and saluted. Bess left him to it and went upstairs to her sisters.
‘I’ve ordered sandwiches. You’ll need something to eat before you go to the Walsgrave to see Margot,’ she said. ‘Bill’s expecting you at three o’clock.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘No. I can go anytime. Claire’s going home tomorrow, so you go with her today and I’ll stay here with the children. Oh, and Mam’s expecting to go today too, so will you call and pick her up on the way. If she’s dressed for the occasion, take her with you. If she’s forgotten, tell her I’ll take her on Monday. Who’s hungry?’ Bess called to Nancy and Aimee. Both girls jumped up, discarded their toys and led the way downstairs.
‘Now girls, what do you want to do?’ Bess asked, when Claire and Ena had left to visit Margot and the baby. Aimee lifted her shoulders and swayed from left to right. Nancy copied her. ‘Shall we… play with the doll’s house? You could take the furniture out of each room and put it back where you think it looks best.’
Neither child was impressed by Bess’s idea. ‘Or, we could get the train set down. I bet Uncle Frank would put the railway tracks together for us.’ Bess looked at Frank for support, but didn’t get any. ‘We could go on a magical journey. Hooray!’ Bess clapped her hands. ‘What do you think? Is that a good idea?’ she asked, nodding madly in the hope that her enthusiasm would rub off on the two girls and they would agree to play with the train. They didn’t.
Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) Page 16
